Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Self Portrait Project

I know that some of you saw these on Facebook and wondered what in the world is all that about.. well I am here on the blog to tell you, not that it was any big secret because I think most women have this issue but I hate the way I look in photos. (ok that is a fib I just typically hate the way I look in general but for the sake of keeping this short we will just say in photos ok??)

I have been working on trying to stay in a more positive mind set recently (four days really but who's counting) and while it is hard work I am determined to see this through and wake up in the morning with a positive thought and go to sleep with a positive thought, and have the other thoughts in between positive as well. I am sure I will miss the "I am going to spork your eyeball out if you don't shut up!" thoughts from time to time but for right now I am packing them in a trunk and moving on to warm puppies and rainbows.

So here is where the project came in, I realized that one of the things I am most negative about is ME. I actually had THREE people in two days ask me why I was so hard on myself. I didn't even realize I had been that negative about my thoughts of myself, but apparently I have been, according to Facebook. I couldn't think of anything specific I had said and while I asked them to point it out they really couldn't find a post (I mean there are thousands ya know) but I figured with three separate people saying it, that were not connected, there must be some truth in it.

On Monday I was feeling a bit more like the old me than has been the norm for months so I hopped in my car and went to Haven Beach to take some photos of ghosts whatever caught my eye, when nothing seemed quite right for photo taking, I did the unthinkable, I turned the camera around backwards and took nothing but photos of me. I called it the "Self Portrait Project" for lack of a better title and decided I was going to process them and post some on Facebook regardless of how I felt about them. The longer they have stayed up the better I have felt, not because of the comments (which were great by the way) but just because I was seeing me in a bit of a different like (aside from the fact that I have realized I have freaky ass blue eyes that I never noticed until I removed all color except from my eyes in a photo) but I feel like that little project in it self has helped me, I can't promise I won't run from a camera pointed at me anymore but I am going to try to be a little less camera shy and not so critical of myself.

The way I figure it, in order for other people to love me the way I want and need them too, I need to also, it is not fair to ask them to do something I don't really do myself. Ya know?